CS148: Introduction to Computer Graphics and Imaging, Summer 2010

Course Information

• Instructor: Siddhartha Chaudhuri (office hours: Tue 3:15pm-5pm, Gates 396. Out-of-office on Jun 22 and Jul 27. 4pm-5:45pm Aug 3)
• Teaching assistant: Niels Joubert (office hours: Thu 3:15pm-6pm, Gates 386, except Jul 29)
• Time: Tue/Thu, 1:15-3:05pm
• Venue: Gates Computer Science Building, room B03 (in the basement)
• Contact: cs148-sum0910-staff@lists.stanford.edu

Topics

Image input and output devices such as cameras and displays, graphics hardware and software, input technologies and interactive techniques, typography and page layout, light and color representations, exposure and tone reproduction, image processing and compression, sampling, aliasing and antialiasing, two- and three-dimensional geometry, modeling techniques including curves and surfaces, reflection models and illumination algorithms, basic methods of animation, and information visualization.

Textbooks

Required: Shirley and Marschner, Fundamentals of Computer Graphics, 3rd ed. (in a pinch 2nd ed. is ok)

Optional:
- Shreiner et al., The OpenGL Programming Guide, 6th ed. (7th ed. also ok)
- Angel, OpenGL: A Primer, 3rd ed.
- ... or any other decent OpenGL programming guide that covers shaders (GLSL)

Stanford students have free online access to the 2nd ed. of Shirley and Marschner and the 7th ed. of Shreiner et al.

Other books which you are encouraged to consult (get the latest edition you can find):
- Foley, van Dam, Feiner and Hughes, Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice in C
- Hearn and Baker, Computer Graphics, C Version
- Angel, Interactive Computer Graphics: A Top-Down Approach with OpenGL

Schedule

• Midterm (Solutions, Class stats): July 19 (Mon) 7-9pm PDT, Braun Lecture Hall, Mudd Chemistry Building
• Final: (Solutions, Class stats) August 13 (Fri) 1-3:15pm PDT, Gates Computer Science Building, room B03 (our usual classroom, in the basement)

Day	Topic	Handouts and Reading
June 22	Introduction	Slides Videos: - Harmonic Fluids - The AlloSphere - The Hubble Ultra Deep Field in 3D
June 24	Light and Color	Slides Readings: - Doug Kerr's excellent introduction to the CIE 1931 spaces - Shirley Ch. 20 (Light) and 21 (Color)
June 29	Cameras, Displays and Compression	Slides Readings: - Stollnitz, DeRose and Salesin, Wavelets for Computer Graphics: A Primer, Part 1
July 1	Image Processing	Slides Readings: - Shirley Ch. 3 (Raster Images) and 9 (Signal Processing) - Smith and Blinn, Blue Screen Matting, SIGGRAPH '96 - An advanced review of blue/green screen matting
July 6	Geometry	Slides Readings: - Shirley Ch. 2 (Miscellaneous Math, excluding 2.5 and 2.7 for now) and 6 (Transformation Matrices) - Optional: Shirley 2.7 (Triangles), Ch. 5 (Linear Algebra)
July 8	Rendering 1	Slides Readings: - Shirley Ch. 4 (Ray Tracing) and 13 (More Ray Tracing) - Introductory articles from Paul Rademacher, and HyperGraph Extra Stuff: - Stuff I wrote a long time ago (might have some errors, please let me know) - A discussion of how to compute reflected and refracted rays - POV-Ray homepage and Hall of Fame
July 13	Rendering 2	Slides Readings: - Shirley Ch. 8 (The Graphics Pipeline) and 2.7 (Triangles) - Lori DeLooze's OpenGL tutorial Extra Stuff: - Angel's OpenGL: A Primer (preferably 3rd ed.) - Any OpenGL programming guidebook, such as the "Redbook" (Shreiner et al.) Look particularly at the commands we covered in class, and related ones. While you should always read the introductory chapters, we unfortunately can't pick and choose subsequent chapters because the material is often presented in reference, rather than pedagogical, format. - The OpenGL SDK documentation
July 15	Rendering 3 and Artist Workflow	Slides Readings: - Shirley Ch. 8 (The Graphics Pipeline) and 18 (Using Graphics Hardware) - Lighthouse 3D's excellent GLSL tutorial - Wolfe, Teaching Texture Mapping Visually
July 20	Curves and Surfaces	Slides Readings: - Shirley Ch. 15.1-15.5 (Curves)
July 22	Animation and Interaction	Slides Readings: - Shirley Ch. 17 (Computer Animation) - Lighthouse 3D's GLUT tutorial (esp. useful for AS4) - Optional: Shirley Ch. 19 (Building Interactive Graphics Applications)
July 27	No class
July 29	No class
August 3	Visualization (Jason Chuang)	Slides from Jeff Heer's CS448B class: - The Value of Visualization - Data and Image Models
August 5	Programmable Graphics Hardware (Niels)	Slides Extra Stuff: - Jim Clark, The Geometry Engine, 1982 - Kurt Akeley, RealityEngine Graphics, 1993 - NVIDIA Fermi Compute Architecture Whitepaper, Architecture Overview p.7 to p.11
August 10	Typography and Layout (Niels)	Slides
August 12	Sampling, Aliasing and Special Topics	Sampling: - Slides - SIGGRAPH Antialiasing Course Notes Quo vadis? - Slides - Featured project links: --- Light field photography --- Camera 2.0 (Frankencamera) --- Optimizing Walking Controllers for Uncertain Inputs and Environments --- Interactive Generation of Human Animation with Deformable Motion Models: Paper, Video --- Gesture Controllers: Paper, Video --- Unified Simulation of Elastic Rods, Shells, and Solids: Paper, Video --- PatchMatch --- Real-Time Object Segmentation with Semantic Texton Forests --- Image-Based Exploration of Massive Online Environments --- NVidia OptiX GPU raytracer --- A Connection between Partial Symmetry and Inverse Procedural Modeling --- Metropolis Procedural Modeling --- Data-Driven Suggestions for Creativity Support in 3D Modeling (coming soon) --- Non-local Scan Consolidation for 3D Urban Scene --- NETRA (Graphics conference papers archive)

Assignments

Assignments will be due at Midnight (23:59:59 PDT) on the scheduled date. This class has no late days, and a 10% penalty per day late will be enforced.

Submit your assignments here

Check your grades here

• Programming Languages:
  All assignments must be done using C or C++. If you need a decent book on C++, we recommend the C++ Primer.
  C++ References: cplusplus reference and Standard Template Library Guide.
  We also recommend looking at the Google C++ Style Guide. It will help you avoid the pitfalls of C++.
  
  
• Programming Environment:
  We will support both the Linux/Mac makefile-based work environment and Microsoft Visual Studio.
  • Mac:
    Install the latest XCode suite from the Mac Developer Center (You don't need the iPhone development version, although it will work fine as well). This will install the gcc and g++ compilers, which you need for this class. Please be sure to have Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal) close at hand since all compilation will be makefile-based from the command line.
  • Linux:
    We depend on the g++ and gcc compilers, make, and the GLUT OpenGL libraries. If you have an apt-based system you can install the package "build-essential" to get the compilers. We will provide details on the OpenGL install at assignment 4.
  • Windows:
    You can download Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express for free. As a Stanford student, you can also request most Microsoft (and VMWare) software from MSDN-EE if you prefer to use the full version rather than the Express. Both work for this class.
• Math Libraries
  We are providing a simple vector library for C++ with your projects called algebra3.h. It's a single file, it's simple, and it does the basics. We will be including this with your projects.
  
  
• Image Libraries
  We will be happy if your code outputs images in the PPM image format since it is an ASCII file format that can easily be written to a file. In this case, you need to convert the PPM output from your code into a PNG. We will also be supporting the FreeImage library. Your TA has previously written up a guide on setting up and using FreeImage on your machine. You can find the FreeImage documentation here.
  
  
• Text Editors
  You can choose to use whichever C++ text editor you prefer (XCode, TextWrangler, TextMate, Emacs for OSX, Emacs, Kate, macvim, Eclipse CDT, Microsoft Visual C++, Notepad++ come to mind). *NIX-based makefiles and Windows Visual C++ projects will be supplied to compile source code.
  
  

Assignment	Description	Due Date	Weight
AS1 (results)	Render the Mandelbrot Set	June 28 23:59:59 PDT	8%
AS2 (results)	Feature-Based Image Metamorphosis	July 10 23:59:59 PDT	16%
AS3	Raytracing	July 25 23:59:59 PDT	18%
AS4	Half-Life Map Loader using OpenGL	Aug 9th 23:59:59 PDT	18%

FAQ

• Is attendance mandatory for local students?
  Yes! Unless you are registered as a remote student via SCPD, you must attend at least 85% of the classes. In other words, you can skip at most 2 lectures. We understand some on-campus students are doing internships over the summer, or are otherwise unavailable during the day, and can only view the lectures over the Internet. If so, let us know at the beginning of the course so we can excuse you from the attendance requirement. Note that non-SCPD students still need to appear in person for the exams.
  
  
• What's the grading policy?
  Assignments: 60% (weights of individual assignments will be announced separately)
  Midterm: 15%
  Final: 25%
  
  If you are required to attend lectures (see previous FAQ), your score will be reduced by 3% for every class you miss beyond the permitted 2. In other words, skipping all lectures is roughly equivalent to skipping both exams. Neither is recommended.
  
  
• What's the Honor Code?
  The Stanford Honor Code is a set of ethical guidelines that students, faculty and staff are expected to follow in letter and in spirit. Please read it carefully (it's short) before the start of the course so you understand exactly what it involves. While Stanford shows an unusual level of trust in its academic community (for example, exams are not proctored), violations are taken very seriously indeed.
  
  
• Can I submit my assignment after the deadline?
  Yes, but you'll lose 10% per day late (1 minute after the deadline counts as a day late). To avoid mail server delays, you are urged to avoid last-minute submissions.
  
  
• Is this course about commercial software packages/graphic design/game development...?
  No, but we'll learn concepts on which these areas critically rely.
  
  
• What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
  42. (In km/h for an European swallow, that's actually a good guess.)